


perfectly out of place

by Neffectual



Series: music is the language of feeling [3]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bad Sex, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Ableism, Chronic Pain, Disability, Disability Viewed as a Personal Failing, Disappointing sex, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hysterectomy, Loss, M/M, Magically Cured Disability, Mentioned Suicide Attempt, Misery, Pain, Pain tolerance, Painful Sex, Physical Disability, Regret, Sex for Favors, Suicidal Ideation, Yen's Dub-Con Orgies, only mentioned - Freeform, sex as currency, sex for political gain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:01:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28127292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: There's plenty Yennefer gave up to be where she is. She's not sure she wants to be there, if that's the price.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Istredd/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Triss Merigold/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: music is the language of feeling [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2180967
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	perfectly out of place

**Author's Note:**

> This deals with grief following a hysterectomy, chronic pain, magical curing of disability, grief, and regret. I don't think Yennefer's thought pattern is good, but as someone with multiple disabilities, chronic pain, and suicide attempt scars, I know that I've been there, and I've had those thoughts, whether or not I wanted to. I suspect Yen's views on sex are also coloured by my pain, but with the addition of being a multiple-times rape survivor.  
> I might be working through some stuff while we plan my medically necessary hysterectomy.

_"I want everything, now, and it has to be as wonderful as it was when I was little! Otherwise, I prefer to die." -_ **Antigone, Jean Anouilh**

Yennefer thinks she’s probably the first person ever to wake up from her Changes to sit up, stretch, and say “Well, that’s better.” Her spine is straight, her neck long and elegant, her figure impeccable – and though the pain is there, it’s barely a background whisper compared to the screaming her body has been doing for her entire life. Her scars and her eyes are hers to keep, but the rest of her is made anew, and while she’s still healing, that’s nothing. Pain has powered her for years, and she’s not about to let these little twinges change how she intends to get exactly what she wants. Power waits for no one – and now, neither does Yennefer of Vengerberg, sorceress and star pupil of Aretuza.

Every step of her plan is so easy that it’s difficult for her not to wait for her speech or her movements to trip her up, but this body is hers now, no longer hewn out of a failed mix of genetics that warped her into one of the gods’ cruel jokes. Now, she owns every piece of herself, hand-crafted and carefully worked to be as appealing as possible. In a few hundred years, perhaps she’ll regret picking something so clearly inspired by childhood fantasy, but for now, she wants to stand out and be seen as something other than a target of laughter and taunts. If she spares a single thought for the remnants of her womb, burning on the brazier as her sacrifice for all this perfection, it is that she wishes she could have got rid of it before her monthlies were upon her, before she even had any knowledge it was there at all. Growing up would have been a hell of a lot easier if she’d known she could trade some useless pieces of flesh for beauty and immortality.

The first few twinges of regret begin to sink in after a couple of decades at court. At first, when she took men to her bed – bores, all of them, but necessary for her political ascension – she assumed that her lack of enjoyment was that they were old, fat, and married, pathetically grateful to be let beneath her skirts. It is a fault in them, not her, that she doesn’t find herself slick and wet at their attentions, that she draws no pleasure from it. It says nothing about her, she’s certain of that, because she is perfect in every way. She drew the designs herself to make sure, there’s no longer anything in her that’s twisted or wrong, so it must be the fault of the bloated, corpulent men whose favour she has to gain with simpering smiles and soft words. It must be.

She recalls lying with Istredd, when they were both initiates, the way he looked at her like he could see into her soul, not just her mind. He cradled her like she was precious, like she meant something, as if she didn’t know her worth was four measly marks. She remembers thinking how stupid he was, to treat her as if she was already a gorgeous sorceress, as if she was mysterious and beautiful, as if he wanted her. But she wanted him, too, and was always wet for him, dripping and ready by the time he undressed her and drew her legs up, pressing into her core like a rod of steel entering a volcano, unafraid to become molten. With Istredd, being bedded was something that made her feel powerful and gorgeous when nothing else could, made her feel like a rare specimen of butterfly, pinned to corkboard to be examined fully and exclaimed over for her beauty. When she recalls his betrayal, she can feel her mouth twist, like it used to, and hastens to smooth it out, refusing to chance fate and get stuck like that. He promised to love her, and then the moment he was asked, he sold her secrets for his own advancement. In a way, her first lesson in politics has been the one that’s lasted the longest – there is no love in this world that can’t be overwhelmed by the desire to get ahead.

She wonders if that’s what it is, if that’s the first thought that sparks her longing, her loss, her desire for a babe of her own to hold, to clutch to her breast, to look up at her with eyes like hers and love her entirely, wholly, without caring of the wrongs she’s done, nor the way she’s poisoned and fucked her way to a place of power in court. She desperately wants to believe that it’s possible, that someone could love her like she thought Istredd loved her, that someone could give her everything she needs to survive. The need to be loved like that; unconditionally and with a whole heart – it plagues her waking moments, and her dreams are full of the cries of the child she failed to save, its cold, blue face staring up at her with reproach. She could have saved the girl, at the cost of herself, but she chose to save her own skin, yet again, the babe seems to say. She chose herself, like she always has, and selfishly let others die to extend her own miserable life.

She wakes from these dreams retching, her body a flash of white-hot agony, as if she’s once more trapped in the shell she used to call her being, that twisted and grotesque example of all the ways that humans can be flawed. Sometimes it takes her hours staring into the looking glass to reassure her that the Changes are not being unwrought, that she is not returning to that shape that she so reviled. Sleepless nights make the chaos in her bones harder to focus, harder to twist and change and shift, and she’s glad to be gone from court and her need to play by the rules. Out in the wider Continent, she does as she pleases, and no one is her master. Even when cuffed and shackled, she can charm her way out of any situation and make herself the owner of her own destiny. In every situation but one.

When she first arrives in Rinde, it’s easy money, a few fertility spells here and there, all the things that she’s been told she shouldn’t do, because magic isn’t meant to be used for such frivolous things. Big words from a group of people who insist that their women have to look perfect, while their men can age as they please. She finds a few local men who want to try it with a mage, and takes them to bed, expecting something akin to the pleasure she found with Istredd – but if anything, their obvious passion for her makes it worse than the greed of the courts where her body was but a means to an end. They’re keen, almost aggressive, and she’s surprised to find that it hurts, for the first time. Even losing her maidenhead was never so painful, but with this, every thrust from their lovely bodies makes her bite down on her lips to hide her winces. More than once, she clouds their minds to make them finish, just so they will get out of her and fall asleep with their arms around her, as she stares out of the open shutters at the moon, willing it to tell her what is wrong with her.

Eventually, she stops participating at all, instead taking her pleasure in watching delicious, nude bodies writhe in piles of two, three, four – the orgies she powers with her own magic are renowned for having one lose their senses and simply fall into lust, only recovering their shame when she breaks the spell and they realise all their neighbours surround them, and could have been watching them. It’s not the sex they regret, simply that they have been out of control, even though that’s what they all asked her for. All she does is give them exactly what they want, whether they really mean it or not. She tries not to think about applying that to herself, and what she might have done differently, had she known. The latest fertility potions haven’t worked either, and she’s beginning to get desperate – no one warned her that powerful magic and a body honed by it came at a price any deeper than removing a few bits of useless flesh. She wonders how different her choices might have been, and refuses to cry herself to sleep.

The Witcher is new enough to pique her interest, with his bard at his side, throat swollen and silent. He still seems to rather enjoy the orgy, if his wide eyes are anything to go by. Geralt, on the other hand, barely spares a glance for the nudity surrounding them, instead focused entirely on her. His attention reminds her of another man, long ago, who looked at her like that, as if she was the entire world, and she can’t help but shudder with want, even as she teases and taunts him, waiting to see if he’ll snap. When he doesn’t, she pushes a little further, and tries to use the djinn for her own ends. She tells herself she isn’t hurt when he asks her of her affliction, or catches sight of her scars, tells herself that she isn’t ashamed of her past, even as she knows it’s all false. When Geralt saves her, she’s furious, because as much as she agrees that her plan probably wouldn’t have worked, the sweet relief of death seems like a mercy after all this pain and rage that blooms through her like blood in water.

She fucks him anyway, riding him in the rubble of the house the djinn brought down with its magic, and feels the same familiar stabs of pain, the same emptiness, the same sensation of just going through the motions until he comes inside her, their sterility meeting and reminding her once more of what she’s lost. The sex is as much a punishment for her as it is a reward for him, and she’s grateful when he passes out straight after, expecting nothing more from her. At this point, she’s stretched so thin, a twanging bowstring of tension, that she doesn’t think she has any more to give. She leaves before he wakes, knowing his bard will give him the attentions that she refuses, and determined not to feel anything even close to remorse.

The dragon hunt is a mistake, she’s aware of it almost immediately, and knows it for certain the second Geralt of bloody Rivia shows up. Once more, the bard is trailing him, and she makes a point to snipe at him, to rub up against the places where he and Geralt are joined and press them out of shape, to make their relationship frayed and difficult, even as she wonders why she’s doing it. Jaskier is undoubtedly fun to rile up, but there was a time when she’d had preferred him as a sparring partner than as an unarmed man, helpless before her. The mountain proves more perilous than she thought possible, and she sees the way Geralt looks when he loses something, even as she learns about his child surprise, and aches with envy for something he can have but she cannot. She would claw the world itself to ribbons for what he has, she realises, and yet he cannot see the value at all.

They don’t kill the dragon, and she doesn’t get to find out whether dragons would work to fix her problems. Instead, she gets a lecture from Borch about how she needs to stop hoping that she will regain her womb, and how she and Geralt are inextricably tied. It is far, far too much for her to cope with, and she leaves, unable to listen to more of those sanctimonious words. As a child, she never believed she could be beautiful, either, and that was disproved easily with the tutelage of Aretuza. Giving up just isn’t in her nature, isn’t something she knows how to do, and she wonders if that’s why she carries this pain with her everywhere she goes.

Testing whether sex is only painful with men takes very little time, as she flits from the inexperienced and lovely Triss to the cold, skilled hands of Tissaia, trying to forget how kind and cruel both have been. Triss is sweet, soft, and delicate in every way that Yennefer needs, but the second she presses inside, the pain overwhelms everything that was pleasing about their coupling. When Triss notices, she refuses to continue, instead going back to using her mouth, pressing hot kisses to the sweet quim in front of her and continuing to be vocal in her pleasure, even as Yennefer pants in confused pleasure and pain, unsure of what to do. Sweetness isn’t something she usually prizes in her lovers, but after a little while with Triss, who apologises and places a hot poultice on her belly, right where the pain is, Yen thinks that she might have to change that, even as the pain stings through her like a knife.

Tissaia is everything that Triss is not; knowledgeable, hard, and unforgiving. It takes a while for Yennefer to chase away the memories of being locked in her room, being called Piglet, being treated harshly because it is the only way Tissaia knows to nurture magical talent like her own. It was what was used on her, after all, and she’s fine, she says, never once thinking if the urge to be cruel to children proves that something is broken inside of her. Tissaia likes to give commands in bed, and expects them to be followed, but when Yennefer cries out, the stab of the pain too much, those commands become about limits and watchwords, about taking care of herself and not letting anyone else’s wants run roughshod over her. She reminds Yen that they are the best of Aretuza, beholden to no one, and that giving in to the wants of men is beneath them. When she leaves, Yennefer curls into a ball and cries, silent and agonised, as the pain sparks through her, a constant reminder of what she cannot have, and that she is even failing at being a mage, the one thing she has ever excelled at in her life.

When the cries go up that Nilfgaard is coming, it’s almost a relief. She is tired of longing, tired of hurting, tired of wondering if she did the right thing. Regret is something that she can ill afford, and she doesn’t intend to waste time on it anymore. As she turns to face the oncoming army, Fringilla’s magic making the air taste like burning tin, Sodden Keep behind her, she wonders what death is like. Perhaps she’ll find out.


End file.
